big tornadoes like that are intense- i've been way too close to a few of them for my own comfort..
back in '91 i watched from my living room in Howard Lake, MN, as the next town over- Cokato- got hit by a tornado... it was after sunset, but i could tell from 6 miles away that they were just getting destroyed. i knew a couple of people that almost died in that one and a lot of people that lost houses..
back in July of '97 i watched an EF4 or EF5 land about a mile behind where i was working in Howard Lake, MN- it was one of those mile wide black funnels that just looks scary as hell- and it stayed on the ground for something like an hour and covered about 30 miles across the countryside and up thru Buffalo and Monticello and Big Lake... i don't think there were any fatalities, but it did a hell of a lot of property damage. i remember that the temp dropped from about 100 degrees to under 70 degrees in about 10 minutes when that one went by and it got almost as dark as midnight despite being about 5 pm. that one was followed by a smaller one that landed directly west of us, went back up and right over the building, then landed again about 1/4 mile to the east of us and took out a grain elevator and knocked over some train cars before going back up for good..
just a few years ago i was about 4 miles away from the tornado that tore across the countryside from just north of Parkers Prairie, MN and went right thru the middle of Wadena and took out the brand new school that was just built the year before... this was in the middle of the day, but it was about a week after the school year was done so no one was in the school when it hit... i think that one killed 5 or 10 people when it was all said and done, but i know it took out at least one small town and about 2 miles of power lines along state highway 29 and left a path thru some old growth woods that was about 1/4 mile wide- it's kind of weird seeing uprooted ancient oak trees laying on their sides in the middle of an open field about a mile from the woods where it came from.. i was sitting in my living room about 4 miles west of that one watching it happen on the weather channel and waiting for it to turn my way. they did an episode of storm chasers or whatever it's called in the Discovery Channel about that storm..
they are intense events that can do a lot of damage in a very short time, and they come out of nowhere- it could be perfect sunny summer day and within a few minutes shit's flying around and you are trying to figure out what's going on... part of living in the middle of the country is accepting that eventually one of them might be aimed at you and no building codes or emergency plan is going to stop it from getting you.